The Italian Billionaire's Disgraced Fiancée (17 page)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Slowly Izzy bent down and carefully placed the vase with the sweet smelling roses onto the grave.
Mermaid
, her late father’s favourite flowers which bore lovely white blooms with a golden centre and trailed around the front door of the clapboard house he had left her.

‘They remind me of your mother,’ he’d used to say with a smile. ‘She was as beautiful as a rose. Just like you.’

A tear silently slid down her cheek. Her mother’s beauty had not been strong enough to tie her parents together, and where Enzo was concerned… He could pick any woman he desired. They all started to salivate as soon as he entered a room, so why settle for her, a woman he despised? When he looked at her, he didn’t see the beautiful rose her father had seen. The only thing he noticed, were the thorns.

She wiped the tear away with her fingers and forced herself to a little smile towards the head stone.

‘Whenever I read mum and your letters, Dad,’ she said, ‘I can’t understand how this could have happened. How two people, who deeply love each other could possibly
not
talk and
not
communicate and doing so dig the grave for their love.’ She sighed. ‘But you know, that’s exactly what Enzo and I have been doing. Never talking, never explaining… I wanted to, but he wouldn’t let me. I guess, I should have tried more. I should have been more persistent and try again and again until he’d finally listen to what I had to say.’

She snapped a wilting leaf off one of the flowers.

‘It’s not easy when someone doesn’t want to listen. When he is so prejudiced that anything you say or do either doesn’t count or speaks against you.’ She smiled a wobbly smile. ‘But don’t worry, Dad. I’ll cope with it just as you coped when Mum left. I only wish you were here to take me in your arms and tell me that everything will be all right.’

Holding the remaining roses in her arm, Izzy went back to the entrance of the cemetery, across the wide gravel path and along the graves of old friends she’d known when she’d grown up here. Close to the entrance was the imposing resting place of the St Clair family who had lived in the manor house for over two centuries. Enzo’s mother had been the last St Clair, and when she married the house had become part of the
Vallorini estate.

Izzy’s heart ached when she remembered the expression in Enzo’s eyes, when he had told her about his greatest wish. About the family home that he loved so dearly and that had fallen into the hands of Rebecca Morton after her divorce from his brother. He had looked so desperate, so completely without hope that she just
had
to try her best to help him get the mansion back.

She smiled. She could hardly believe how swiftly Nick had managed to convince Rebecca that he, or rather ‘My Greatest Wish, was the perfect buyer for the house.  The deal had been completed within less than a week. Clearly the actress had assumed that Nick would never return the house to the original owners, because Luca had smashed his nose in a fit of jealousy.

A short walk later she reached the mansion house that stood in a sheltered position close to the beach and opened the wrought-iron gate. The house had been left empty for the past two years, and she had wanted to make sure that Enzo found it warm and inviting on his return.

It looked perfect now, she decided after a quick inspection of the interior. All the house had needed was a good cleaning and a team of gardeners, and the company that had seen to that this morning had done a great job. The weeds had gone, the window panes sparkled, and they had even polished the silver.

Contented Izzy went into the kitchen to find a vase and filled it with water for the roses she had brought. Once she was happy with her flower arrangement, she carried the vase into the living room and put it on the console table between the two sets of French windows. Lovely!

Suddenly her smile faded. Was this the room where Enzo had been waiting for her on that fatal evening when her father had fallen ill, probably with flickering candles on the table and romantic music playing in the background?

Izzy couldn’t even start to imagine how he must have felt when she hadn’t turned up. At the time, she hadn’t really thought about this. She had been too absorbed in her own despair to think straight, but now… Enzo had been let down by his nearest and dearest more than once. By his birth parents who had left him to die in a park. By his adoptive parents who ignored him in their will. By his brother who carelessly lost the home he loved.

Clearly, Enzo hadn’t deserved to be stood up by his fiancé like that. If she could turn back the clock and change the chain of events, she would, but this was an impossible dream.

Her phone beeped. A broad grin spread across her face when a wedding picture appeared on the screen. Bella was the most beautiful bride she had ever seen, and pure love shone from the eyes of her new husband.

I’m so happy for you
, Izzy instantly texted back.
I wish you both all the luck in the world.

Still smiling, she put the phone back into her pocket and left the house.

Having to play a role and consequently lie to Enzo had deeply irritated her, but at least it had been worthwhile in the end. Bella had finally found true love in Luca’s arms, after all these miserable emoticons she had sent. Her sister thoroughly deserved her happiness. She had been so determined, so sure that Luca was the right man for her. And so terribly stubborn about not wanting to tell him who she really was until he professed his love. Izzy assumed that at this very moment Luca felt like the luckiest guy in the world. After the disaster of his first marriage he wouldn’t marry again without being truly in love.

Which brought her thoughts back to Enzo, and how rotten it had all ended.
 

‘I love you more than anything
,’ he had said to her during that last night.
‘But I hate you, because you’re a liar.’

With Bella and Luca being married, he’d very soon find out just how much she had been lying to him during the past fortnight. She shivered when she envisaged his most likely reaction.
His utter contempt.

Practically everything had been a lie. Even the name on the CV had been false. She had tried her hardest to stick to the truth, but it had been impossible from the start. She could not possibly have risked her sister’s future happiness and blow her cover. And Enzo would have been furious had he known how the pair of them had tricked him into thinking that Bella had not followed Luca to Las Vegas.

She looked up into the blue afternoon sky. How she wished that it had all been different. That her father were still alive. That she and Enzo had never broken up. That he loved her with all his heart… She sighed. Two days since she had last seen him, two very long days, and he hadn’t come after her. He hadn’t even tried to phone or send a text.

His silence gave her a clear enough message, but what had she expected?
A fairy tale happy-ever-after?

After delivering the keys to the mansion to the solicitor of the
Vallorini family, Izzy walked the short path from the promenade to the beach and sat on a low wall to remove her shoes. She looked towards the horizon. The soft rolling of the waves under the blue summer sky reminded her of Sardinia. How happy they had been, if only for a short while. Her heart clenched at the thought that it was all over now.

Holding her sandals in one hand, she stepped onto the warm sand and went for a walk.

***

Izzy hadn’t been in the office to clear her desk. Blankly Enzo
Vallorini stared out of the window across sunny Green Park. Where the hell could she be?

‘The
Doria papers are ready to sign,’ a prissy voice said behind him. ‘Nick Hetherington would also like to discuss another matter with you. Should I make an appointment for today?’

He turned. ‘What other matter?’

The temp shrugged her shoulders. Enzo had been at the office for one hour, and she was already getting on his nerves. ‘I’m sorry, she didn’t say. Would you like me to find out?’

‘No, this won’t be necessary,’ he replied. He’d find out about it soon enough.

With a sigh of relief he saw her return to her desk to make the appointment with Hetherington.

The moment Enzo stepped into Nick Hetherington’s office he felt his heart rate accelerate.
Dio!
He was nervous, an emotion he had never felt before in business matters. But Hetherington was no simple business partner. He was also someone close to Izzy’s heart. Why else would she display his photo in her living room and have secret meetings with him? And there was also the fact that he had given her that penthouse…

Hetherington greeted him with a smile and a firm handshake. ‘I’m sorry it took so long to prepare the papers for the sale of the hotels, but obviously the owner needed to sign, and she was abroad.’

‘The owner?’ Enzo looked at him in astonishment. ‘I thought they were your hotels?’

‘They belong to my sister,’ Hetherington explained and went across the room to a table with a variety of refreshments. ‘Can I offer you something to drink or a snack?’

The mermaid!

‘A whisky, please,’ Enzo replied, his eyes fixed at the huge painting on the wall behind the table. Hell, he needed a drink.
Probably two. ‘I wanted to buy this picture once, but it was not for sale. How did you manage to buy it?’

‘I didn’t,’ Hetherington replied and handed him the whisky. ‘Izzy gave it to me when her father died.’

Enzo didn’t understand. Why would she give him a picture of her mother?

‘She is my mother too, you see,’ Hetherington said into the silence, as if he’d read his thoughts. ‘Izzy and I are brother and sister.’

Enzo downed his drink.
Siblings!
He hadn’t seen that coming, never in a million years. ‘I haven’t… I assumed…’

‘I know
, you took us for lovers. As did your brother.’ Hetherington grinned. ‘Thank God he didn’t break my nose. But quite frankly, I would have done the same thing, if I’d caught my girlfriend with another man.’ He looked at Enzo’s empty glass. ‘Another drink?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘So Izzy - Clarissa – is the one selling the hotels?’

‘Ah, so you’ve figured that one out?’

Enzo nodded. ‘It took me a while,’ he admitted. ‘A very long while, actually.’

Still shocked, Enzo went over to Hetherington’s desk and stared at the signature on the sales contract.
Clarissa Doria Jones
.

‘Our mother’s surname was
Doria,’ Hetherington explained. ‘She brought the hotels into the family. When she died, Izzy inherited them.’

Enzo didn’t reply. Too much was going through his head. Finally he took his pen from the inside of his jacket and signed.

‘About this other matter I wanted to talk to you about…’ Hetherington placed the glass of whisky next to the sales contract. ‘I guess you need this, when you hear what I have to say.’

Enzo looked at the drink. This was it.
The end. She wouldn’t come back to him and had asked her brother to give him the news.

He took a deep breath and steeled himself for what was about to come.

‘This…’ Hetherington took a file from his desk and handed it to him. ‘This is your greatest wish come true. The deeds to your family mansion in Suffolk.’

Enzo stared at him in disbelief.

‘Izzy was determined to acquire that house for you,’ Hetherington went on. ‘I didn’t quite get why. Something about a lost boy…’

The second whisky went down with another gulp.
Dio!
Why had he not seen what the whole world had seen? That she was kind and warm-hearted, one of a kind. What a fool he had been to throw her love back into her face and mistake her for a gold-digger when in truth she was a millionaire with a heart of gold. He could only hope and pray that it wasn’t too late. That she’d come back to him and forgive him.

His phone vibrated. At the same moment, Nick Hetherington’s phone beeped. Simultaneously they checked their messages. Enzo paled when he saw the picture on the screen.

It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t.

‘It seems your brother has married my sister,’ Hetherington said. ‘We’re family now.’

***

For the next couple of hours Enzo had been too shocked to have a single clear thought. Even now, standing in the wood-panelled office of Stephen Bradshaw, the family solicitor, he wasn’t quite sure whether all of this wasn’t some kind of a bad dream. Maybe he’d wake up any minute, bathed in sweat, but relieved that it had been nothing but a nightmare.

‘Your parents would be so happy to know that the house has fallen back to you,’ Bradshaw said from across his Victorian writing desk. ‘They tried so hard to bend the rules of the inheritance line and find some kind of loophole, but there wasn’t one. As much as they wanted to bequeath the mansion to you, they couldn’t.’

Enzo stared at him in disbelief. Surely he must have misheard. ‘Come again?’

‘The first owner of the mansion decreed that the property may only be passed on to the closest legitimate blood relation, never to children born out of wedlock or to adopted members of the family.’ He smiled. ‘Of course, all this is not relevant anymore, because in the meantime the property has been in different ownership altogether.’